Feature to include Headers, Footers and Page Numbering in PDF reports

[Dinesh_Chandrar]

Dear Appsheet Team,
I do not know when we can have the essential feature of adding Headers, Footers, and Page numbering to the PDF reports generated by Appsheet.
Google Docs is having this feature but we can not have this on our reports although we use google docs as our report template.
Thanks.
Dinesh C.

[LeventK]

Because of the HTML to PDF conversion engine that’s being used, the honor header, footer and page numbering needs a very complex attempt. Thus what you’re requesting is not so possible and I don’t believe it’ll be available anyhow in the very near future.

Try the New PDF Creation Facility Announcements

AppSheet allows you to include PDF attachments via a Workflow or Report Email action. It also allows you to archive PDF files via a Workflow or Report SaveFile action. PDF attachments and files are created as follows: You normally begin by creating a Google Doc or Microsoft Word doc template file. When the Email or SaveFile Workflow or Report runs, it reads the Google Doc or Microsoft Word doc template file in HTML format. It replaces any “variables” you have included in your template file wi…

Try the New PDF Creation Facility Announcements

Hi Green Flux, Unfortunately, no change with respect to page headers, footers, and numbering. We are hoping for higher availability and more stability.

Try the New PDF Creation Facility Announcements

Hi Pocket Survey, I agree it would be a fantastic to honor headers, footers, and page numbers. Unfortunately, I have no idea how we can implement it. To handle automatic page headers, page footers, and page numbering, we would need to implement a “page layout engine” that computes the page location of each element being displayed. I have no idea how to do this that is not ridiculously difficult to implement.

[Dinesh_Chandrar]

Dear Levent,
Thanks for your feedback.
I would like to share what we are doing since this is not supported by the AppSheet right now.

STEP 1
Create a WorkFlow rule for PDF attachment.
STEP2
Generate template using create command.
STEP 3
After that view your template, and inside your template add what you want to add as a header with other contents from fields, then add ‘Page break’ at each page and continue to do so for the whole report and save that.
STEP 4
Save your template for PDF attachment and use the Test feature to generate the report and modify the template till you achieve what you want to achieve.

This is the only alternative we currently have and we have tested and used that in our prototyping apps.

Hope this will help others too.
Best regards.
Dinesh C.

[Lance_Ponder]

Output of info into reports and PDF’s in general are the most important and powerful of features of any database platform. We are migrating away from other platforms to leverage the universal accessibility of appsheet, however my company makes a lot of its money on reports that come from data in appsheet. The difficulties with the output end of it are very painful to work around. Improvements in this area are very badly needed!!!

[DUCKJAI]

I agree, there are workarounds but it honestly seem that it is too much work for an AppSheet user to go through for a feature that should somehow be built in. From my (user) perspective, if AppSheet is tightly integrated into Google Workspace, how come AppSheet do not work well with gDoc?

I would like to point fellow users to pagination which is a great workaround, but I honestly this is an important feature that ought to be supported

[jrullan]

I second this petition exactly for the reasons already expressed.

Business applications rely heavily on the formatted output of information processed by an app on top of a DB. Without the ability to produce decently formatted documents the tool is very limited for many business critical use cases.

For example, I am testing Appsheet as an alternative to a Web Application + MySQL DB to produce customer deliverables in our line of work. We use PHP and a PDF library to build the reports for the data we store and process in our DB. Our solution parses a pre-defined template and creates a multipage formatted report including headers, footers, page numbering, as well as attaching other documents based on the user selection. 

Given the integration of Appsheet with GSuite, I would have expected at a minimum headers and footers. No real life business report will ever be single page, and thus it needs to support these features at a minimum.

[luisandres]

I join this request. Two years and no progress on this problem? Many ideas that I intended to carry out collapsed with this limitation. Including the numbering of the pages in a document is essential, even if it costs a lot of work, you lazy! ha ha

[AllegraD]

I echo @DUCKJAI 's thoughts re: integration with the Google Workspace. Given it's now a Google product, and it's already creating, updating and saving a Google Doc, surely it makes sense to leverage Google Doc's ability to output to PDF - headers, pagination and all - and dump the kinda convoluted Google Doc Template -> Google Doc -> HTML -> PDF process.

I recently rejigged a project to perform the find, replace, convert to pdf, and email by calling a script, rather than using Appsheet to output a sub-optimal report.

Maybe 'Integration Add Ons' could be a solution. Something that allow interfacing with products, where you can access the more powerful features of the connected product without overcomplicating Appsheet itself.

[FaCe]

Yes pleas add this long_awaited_feature_request ASAP ... 

[integraOdontoSj]

Man.... I'm building a software for my dental practice, and unfortunately I left the prescription/contract printing to develop last.... This cripples my app almost entirely... 

I join the chorus!

This feature is a must for any business that still need to work with paper. I mean, it's not only branding, it's necessary info to put on papers your clients and other companies will receive from you.

Please, google! The platform is awesome as it is. I've migrated from microsoft products to appsheet due to the amazing work you guys have done. Give this one a go, please!

[RaVLaR]

Another one joining the petition. Please take the needed time. PDF reports are a no sense without a proper formatting.

[ECardoso]

Hey, guys.

There is already support for:

Page headers, page footers, and page numbering.

Any updates ?

[Denzil_Snyman]

This is so important, I have had no success with any of my clients whom need reporting that contains headers and footers. I can't spend so much time using workarounds for reporting, it is truely a normal need in many businesses across the world that require paperwork using page numbers, headers and footers. 

[SkrOYC]

Anyone needing headers and footers, along with many other things, can do so by using HTML/CSS. I've made many posts about it.

I think in the future this will be supported by the introduction of LayoutNG in headless chrome, but in at least 1-2 years

[ECardoso]

@SkrOYC  Do you have any tutorials on how to add a header and footer?

If you have, please share it with us.

But this falls outside the no-code application philosophy